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Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

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Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a demo video is a good idea, maybe not. Personally, I would not look at a demo video at all, but perhaps others would. Don't take my word for it (sample size N=1) Presumably you've asked your potential customers and believe it would help. Agree 100% with the other commenters: The sign-up flow is super-high friction. You did the first step right though, you measured the funnel and found out that people are dropp…

I was thinking about the only email signup now. But really skip the email too and right into the product? :) Is there any product you've seen particularly do well with that approach?

gusto

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#142
post #52
post #9

I also clicked on signup, but then didn't. Here is why: I wanted to sign up to test the product, but after clicking on signup I get a Typeform modal. Typeform as a signup form makes me suspicious that the product doesn't really exists, and the startup is doing some sort of landing page -> signup validation. You also ask that I enter my credit card and you want to charge me 10$ upfront, without having established any…

update: don't let the data discourage you, though. it's actually not bad. 400/600 clicked signed up? that's fantastic! only 40 people went through with the sign up? I would say thats just user churn because of bad onboarding. the first thing I would do is let people sign up with just email and password, and actually let them use your product, for a free trial period. the second thing I would focus on is getting your…

> user churn because of bad onboarding

I have a stupid question regarding vocabulary, because I've seen this 'inherent' definition of 'churn' used around here more recently.

To me, when I do co-hort analyses, failure to onboard is a conversion failure. In any case - 'Customer Success' territory. 'Churn' is when the custom fails to re-up (for whatever reason).

Am I using the 'wrong words'?

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#144
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? Is that not the same side?

OP said “as a freelancer, my clients like to use their own NDA.” I’m saying “as a client, you are correct, I prefer to use my own NDA.”

I read OP as the inverse of how you read it (I think).

But, regardless, good! Before coffee (AM, where I am), I like to keep all my noun-verb-object clusters straight.

Happy Sunday!

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#145
post #64

To me, it is the product... You’ve essentially taken a bunch of things that are already free, bundled them together, and charged a steep price. * Your NDA could be replaced with a simple Google search * There are plenty of ways to throw together a quick, pro looking website. * Scheduling calls is done over email, and gmail and outlook already add appointments to your calendars. * Chat assistant can be replaced with T…

I don't think so. All of the things you explained below takes at least a week in real life to complete. To and fro emails to get the requirement right, using DocuSign to sign NDAs, then setting up a call. While with Sieve PRO all of this happens right away. About equity, we've already raised an angel round, so I think it creates some value, but now I think we need to convey this better to the audience.

> To and fro emails to get the requirement right, using DocuSign to sign NDAs, then setting up a call. While with Sieve PRO all of this happens right away.

How does Sieve PRO make "all of this happen right away"? All of that stuff involves communication with the client; all of that to and fro still has to happen. Neither here nor on your promotional site are you making the case for how you make any of that process faster or easier.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#146
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. All of the things you explained below takes at least a week in real life to complete. To and fro emails to get the requirement right, using DocuSign to sign NDAs, then setting up a call. While with Sieve PRO all of this happens right away. About equity, we've already raised an angel round, so I think it creates some value, but now I think we need to convey this better to the audience.

As a freelancer, this also just doesn’t fit with my personal experience. When a client wants an NDA, they send one. I rarely/never care. I’ll check over the language, but they don’t want to use my NDA in general. Invoicing, time tracking is done through my accounting system. Scheduling meeting is pretty easy. Setting up a personal website is pretty easy, and if you’re a Webdev you probably already have one. In my exp…

Same here. I freelance part time. All NDAs have been from clients. Meetings are rare, mostly everything is in emails. For invoices, I use Quickbooks.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#147
Others have addressed the sign-up flow; I didn't get that far before bailing out.

TL;DR: you don't make a case for why your offering has any value.

Most of the information about what you offer is buried in a really uncompelling video, which seems tailored to make it as difficult as possible for potential customers to see what they're paying for. Three and a half minutes of muttering while slowly filling fake information into a long form -- with zero indication of what the form is for, or what value it offers. This is followed by about thirty seconds of scrolling absurdly quickly through a page which contains all the information you just typed in. For some reason.

The glimpse of the sole feature that is any more elaborate than "fill in a form then see what you just filled in" is comically brief: "You can have a conversation with your support agent at any time" -- you pop it open for literally less than half a second and then log out. Who's this support agent? Is it a person or a chatbot? Is is supporting the freelancer or their clients? What information can it provide? I have no idea. This is followed by an equally brief glimpse of the "client dashboard", which provides zero information about why it exists or what either the client or freelancer would use it for.

So far I'm left with the impression that I could get more or less the same value by purchasing a 99-cent notepad and just writing this stuff down.

The feature checklist is equally problematic:

* Personal website: which is practically a commodity by this point, and which your potential customers can't see before buying.

* Client onboarding: presumably the long form being filled in in the video. No case is made for why this has any value.

* Client NDA: the thing here is, you have this completely backwards. NDA always comes from the client, not the freelancer. No client who requires an NDA is going to trust one drawn up by the freelancer. That you tout this as a major feature makes me question your understanding of your target audience's needs.

* Personal assistant: this sounds like it could be a real, potentially useful feature! Too bad you provide no information on how it works. Except oh look: you're using it too -- and your potential customers can easily see that it's a third-party product with a free tier, and just go sign up for it directly, if they find it of value.

* Call scheduling: so I can schedule a call and have it automatically added to my calendar. Or... I could just put it in my calendar. No apparent value add here.

* "Complete client process", a recap of the other five bullet points, because five items don't lay out well.

Based on your copy ("Become a PROFESSIONAL!") and very limited feature set, I have to assume you're targeting amateurs and wannabes -- any freelancer with more than a client or two under their belt will already have their own website, contracts, calendar, etc. Instead you're aiming at the people trying to take the next step up from, like, fiverr gigs. This is fine -- that's a valid market -- but your price point is way too high for that audience. (Incidentally: your pricing page lists $29/month, with copy stating "Start earning more with every deal at 10$/month." That doesn't exactly inspire trust.)

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#148
1. Get a native speaker to proofread your website copy

2. The title of the page is "Sieve Pro - The best management tool for" (missing a "freelancers")?

3. Some people might like it, but I'm always turned off when websites are using SV characters as profile placeholders - makes the site itself seem like a joke

4. As others have said, develop your own signup form instead of using TypeForm - TypeForm always gives me an "MVP"-feel (is the product actually available or do they just want to harvest my email for a later launch?)

5. The footer says "Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy" but these aren't links and I can't find those documents anywhere

6. Clarify if the virtual assistant is an actual person (someone on your team) or a chatbot - makes a huge difference in terms of value: I don't want to scare away my clients with a dumb chatbot, but if there's a human answering (easy) questions 24/7, I'd be impressed

Remember that traffic from ProductHunt is short-lived and the users may not be in your target audience (but just want to check out a cool landing page) - just because you get lots of upvotes on PH doesn't mean that these users will stick around or are actually interested in becoming paying users of your product. Find out where your target audience hangs out (freelancing forums, Slack groups, Facebook communities) and speak to your (potential) users - find out if the features you're offering are actually relevant to your target group. If they are, invite them to try out your product and give you feedback.

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#149
"If you build it, they will come" is entirely untrue in the world of SaaS. Your first ten (even your first 100) customers will each require an enormous amount of effort to find, convince, on-board and retain.

Once you've built a product that ten people are willing to pay for you can probably get to 100. If you can get to 100 you'll probably be able to get to 1,000. But those first 10-100 will be like pulling blood from a stone.

There's so much good advice embedded in https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/starting-sales about getting your first ten customers, but I particularly liked this accompanying tweet:

"We made a sale for Appointment Reminder from someone whose only way of getting data into the system was to fax it to us. Guess the cheat. If you guess “CEO signs up for HelloFax, receives the fax, and types 600 patient names and phone numbers by hand” you have good instincts." - https://twitter.com/patio11/status/922491782583037953

Re: Ask HN: We didn't get a single person to pay for our SAAS – what could be wrong?

#150
The simplest explanation usually being the right one, you have either created a product that your target customers don't want/need or you have not reached your target customers.

Since you didn't get much contact info, you need to find some freelancers and ask them what they think, if is valuable to them, etc.

It's also possible that no freelancers hang out where you have made your launch announcements.

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